Above: A haunting dramatization of the dilemma in question. Click to enlarge.

The other day, Pollux, our “Wavy Rule” staff cartoonist, and I were questioning some punctuation: namely, the upside-down, Spanish-style question mark. After consulting friend and lettering expert Paul Shaw—who reports that “Bringhurst just calls it an inverted question mark, no special name”—we decided it was a real scandal that this character dare not speak its name. (Parenthetically, I wonder when the nameless mark will become a standard part of the computer keyboard, especially in America, where Spanish is rápidamente becoming our dual language?) So we decided to sponsor a contest. Paul wrote everything from here on—and, of course, drew the searing cartoon above.

You’ve seen it before. It stands on the west end of elegant Castilian questions: ¿Adónde vas? ¿Cuando llegarás? ¿Quien eres tú?

Ah, the upside-down question mark! Its limited range lends this punctuation mark a certain romantic air, its elegant curve bent and shaped by the same winds that propelled caravels and galleons on treasure runs across the ocean sea, its use first legislated in 1754 by a second edition of the volume Ortografía, issued by Spain’s Royal Academy.

You can make one yourself: hold your Alt key down, hit the number-lock key, and then type the numbers “168.” [On a Mac, just type option + shift + ?. —Ed.] There, you see it? It stands nobly, and a little sadly, on your computer screen—like a single tear on the face of a father who’s walking his daughter down the aisle of a church, or like a grandee who has been reduced to complete penury but who still points to his ancient coat of arms on the wall.

A noble punctuation mark, to be sure, but deficient in one regard: it lacks a name. “Upside-down question mark” is purely descriptive. Its Spanish name is equally lacking in punch: “signo de apertura de interrogación invertido.”

Now’s your chance to make history. Name this punctuation mark. Give it a name both euphonious and appropriate. Earn everlasting glory. Win a prize—dinner for two at the Spanish, Mexican, Ecuadorian, Dominican, &c., restaurant of your choice, or, if you prefer, a beautiful copy of Pablo Neruda’s immortal The Book of Questions. Emdashes wants to hear your best ideas, so post them in the comments or, if you’re shy (as so many of you are, we know and sympathize), just email us. All entries are due by August 25, no question about it. We are very much looking forward to your submissions. At TypeCon last week, I got two impressive entries from genuine maniac typophiles; I’ll post them in the comments as soon as things get rolling. The very best of luck to you, and andale!

And if you’d like to see more drawings by Pollux, check out “The Wavy Rule” archive.

Loved Paul’s sad and melancholic characterization of the opening question mark! Specially because it represents so well the solitude of the uniqueness of our poor friend… (it is amazing that it only exists in the Spanish grammar). So, to honor its special being I propose unique question mark.

I couldn’t be more pleased and entertained by these awesome entries. Still more are being emailed to me by the bashful, and I’ll add the two I gathered at TypeCon. I’m loving this contest. Keep ‘em coming! ¿What do you have to lose?

Almost forgot to post the paper-based entries! Here are two inspired submissions I collected at TypeCon.

From the aforementioned Paul Shaw, who has no special advantage due to his friendship with one of the judges, but does have the special advantage of being the letterman of letters, this elegant entry that reads beautifully right side up or upside down:

¿nu?

And from genial and thoughtful conference-goer Sean King, two strong contributions:

1. Leading question mark2. Open question mark (like open and closed quotes)

For such a sinuous symbol, this is stiff competition. Can you do better? There’s still time to enter! Also, many thanks to emailers D.T. and J.C. of Toronto, and G.S. of Ottowa, for their seriously viable entries; I don’t know how we’re going to choose a winner, but boy, that conversation is going to be fun.

The Canadians are running away with this competition, by the way; if you’re OK with that, no need to enter, but if you like a little north-south sparring, you’ve still got a chance in NAFTA.

A designer friend observes that since the haunted mark is one half of the pair known as signos de interrogación, “I guess a decent translation would be an initial translation mark…. It’s not so much that it has a name already, it’s more like it’s not really a character in and of itself — sorta like if another culture looked at our question mark and saw it as two distinctly different pieces of punctuation, a hook and a ball, and wondered why we didn’t call them different things. The answer is: because they’re never seen separately. So I guess the real answer is that it’s only half a question mark.”

That makes me want to weep—if there’s anything worse than being a shell of a man, it’s being half a question mark. All the more reason we’re glad it has so many new names—and one best new name, to be announced after the entry period has ended!

From the F12 dictionary on my Mac, we learn the following definitions:

Clew: the lower or after corner of a sail; archaic variant of “clue”; (naut., plural) the cords by which a hammock is suspended; a ball of thread, “used esp. with reference to the thread supposedly used by Theseus to mark his way out of the Cretan labyrinth.” (Etym. Old English for a rounded mass or ball of thread)

The image of the hammock honors the Spanish origin. Also, the two question marks, together, could be known as the “clews”, as if—to extend the metaphor—the content of the question itself were a hammock suspended by the act of inquiry.

That’s all, folks—the contest is now closed! We’ll be making this extremely difficult decision over the next few days and announcing the winner on Friday. Thanks to everyone for your outstandingly entertaining, and often enlightening, submissions, and may the best quirk win!

Oh, and these came in by email before the deadline passed, so they’ll be included in the judging:

I think a good name is: askerix —J.C., Toronto

It’s a bit lame (and I know someone else will think of something more clever) but my entry is the “question-coming mark.” Because its function is to tell you that a question is coming up. For example “¿Donde esta?” means “Where are you?” as opposed to “Donde esta” which means “Where you are.” —G.S., Ottowa

• The invertebrae

• Questant mark (questant is a long-dead word meaning “A person or hound who quests”; I like the idea that the inverted question mark always hounds the regular one) —D.T., Toronto

Almost forgot to add this under-the-wire entry from my aunt, the writer Amy Gordon!

This is a very entertaining contest. The upside question mark does not seem sad to me, but playful and acrobatic. I suggest calling it El Lazarillo after Lazarillo de Tormes, the anti-hero of the first picaresque novel. He was a rogue and a rascal, and that’s how the shape of that punctuation mark strikes me.

I recently read the following, in a book called Story-Crafting by Paul Darcy Boles:

In 1490 the printer Aldus set up a press in Venice. He printed in Greek some of the works of Aristophanes, Demosthenes, Plutarch, Aristotle, Thucydides, Herodotus, and the then nearly contemporary writing of Dante and Erasmus. Because he used Greek punctuation forms, he’s responsible for most of the marks you’re thinking about now.

Among the symbols he transposed from Latin to Greek was one that finally became today’s question mark—a big comma over a dot.

If you’ve arrived here from a search for something related to the upside-down question mark—contestants, we’re way up there in the results for this phrase, which is funny—you’ll be delighted to know: the interroverti, from brother-and-sister team Nadine & Chris LaRoche, won the big prize!

Today, many moons after your inverted-question-mark contest a friend sent it to me. While “interroverti” is the perfect name, hands down, let me slip in an English-language suggestion: the “ask-you.” This would be appealing because it would immediately be corrupted to the AssQ.

The blog’s now treading the territories of punctuation, publications, movies, design, and other things that stir me.

Over the years, I’ve worked with a brilliant brigade of culture writers, editors, and artists. You can read all about the people who've helped build Emdashes here at “Who We?” (That’s a New Yorker joke. Old habits die hard.)

I welcome submissions, questions, corrections, and ardent, obsessive contributors. I also host occasional book-related contests and giveaways. Questioners and publishers, just email me.